


a love like that

by engmaresh



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Class Differences, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Female Friendship, queer friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 15:33:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7273732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engmaresh/pseuds/engmaresh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ruby and Pearl share a quiet moment and talk about love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a love like that

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheScribblingArtist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheScribblingArtist/gifts).



Minutes to weeks. That's what the Jade had said. Minutes to weeks. It has been a minute, two, five, more. Ruby can feel the soles of her feet start to warm. Minutes to weeks. She hurries out of the rose garden. It wouldn't do to set fire to Rose Quartz's beautiful roses. What if Sapphire takes weeks, instead of minutes?

Ruby looks down at the sapphire cradled in her hands. What if Sapphire never reforms?

She keeps her eyes lowered, fixed on Sapphire as she hurries out of the camp, stumbles up the hill and into the forest where Sapphire and her had shared their first dance and fused, deliberately, for the first time. She can stay there until Sapphire reforms. She won't be missed. The camp is in disarray, and she has been accounted for. All they can do if wait for the wounded to regenerate. The shattered have to wait until Rose Quartz herself reforms, so that she can bubble them and bury them safely.

Ruby clutches Sapphire tighter, until their gems grind together. This is ridiculous. They should never have joined the rebels. If they had just remained at the outpost, she would've been shattered... but Sapphire would be safe. Something her twists as remembers that awful, awful moment of being forced apart, that feeling of being torn in two as that Jasper struck Garnet with her Gem Destabilizer. And then that painful wrenching emptiness as Sapphire has been struck again and her physical form disintegrated, leaving behind only her gem.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, pressing the sapphire to her lips. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I should have protected you."

A loud sniff behind her makes her whirl around. Ruby raises her fists, then remembers Sapphire is tucked in one of them, and presses that hand close to her chest.

"Show yourself!" she yells in her most commanding voice, before noticing the Pearl tucked into the split hollow of a tree. And not just any Pearl. Rose Quartz's Pearl.

"I-I'm sorry," she stammers, as she notices Ruby's gaze on. "D-don't mind me, just m-move along!" She sniffs again, and silent tears start to roll down her cheeks. Between the her slender hands is a pink gem.

"Is that --"

"Don't tell anyone," Pearl says frantically. "I'll bring her back! I just --" she bites back a sob, "I Just wanted to hold her. F-for a while."

Ruby looks down at the gem clutched between her own hands.

"May I," she starts, and finds her tongue heavy in her mouth. "May I sit with you?"

Astonishment briefly wipes away Pearl's sorrow, and she gives a cautious nod before scooting aside to make room for Ruby in the hollow. It's a tight fit, but being pressed up against another gem brings with it a strange feeling of relief.

However, the silence between them starts to grow heavy. Pearl has stopped crying and Ruby no longer feels like she's going to burn up any second but the silence is growing awkward. And its been minutes, hours since Saphhire (and Rose Quartz) had been disintegrated. Why haven't they come back yet?

As though she had read her mind, Pearl looks worriedly down at the Rose Quartz cradled in her lap. "She usually doesn't take this long," she murmurs.

Ruby looks down at her Sapphire. She has no idea how long it usually takes Sapphire to reform. Or how many times she has been "poof-ed". The first time they met, Sapphire had predicted she that her physical form would be destroyed by Pearl. Would that have been the first time it happened?

"I'm sorry," Pearl says suddenly.

"Hmmm?" Unsure if she is being the one addressed, Ruby turns to her.

"When we first met," Pearl recounts, "I was going to hurt her. We heard that Blue Diamond was bringing in a seer, and Rose Quartz was worried she would hamper our efforts. You had to rescue Sapphire from me. I'm sorry."

Ruby looks back down at Sapphire and wonders what Garnet would say to this. If she could have foreseen this. Their fusion brings out the best in both of them, and Garnet, Ruby thinks, would know how best to react to this. She has gotten to know Pearl better during her time with the Crystal Gems, and has gotten to know her better. A fierce and cunning warrior, Pearl is also extremely organised and thus in charge of supplies. She does not like the leaves and fruit that those human creatures and some of the Crystal Gems enjoy consuming, and she is unfailingly devoted to Rose Quartz. Ruby cannot fault her for that last one. After all, she'd destroyed the Jasper that had hurt Sapphire and then kicked the gem into a puddle.

"I think," Ruby begins slowly, "that if you hadn't done that, Sapphire and I...we would never have come together. Garnet would not be. So...it's okay."

"How do you do it?" Pearl blurts out, then claps a hand over her mouth, clearly not having intended to say that out loud.

"What?" asks Ruby, slightly confused. "Fuse?"

Pearl shakes her head. "I've done it before," she whispers. "It was when... you'd just joined us. Blue Diamond was angry that she'd lost Sapphire. Her forces trapped us and..."

She takes a long breath. "It was like what happened with you and Sapphire. I just wanted to protect her. And suddenly, we were fused. We escaped. And then we came apart again. It was the best thing I had ever experienced." She looks down at Rose Quartz. They sit in silence for a while. Outside, rain has started to come down in a soft, gentle drizzle. It reminds Ruby of her first day on Earth.

"I should bring her back," Pearl murmurs as she stares blankly out into the rain. "They'll be wanting her back."

She doesn't seem to expect a response to that so Ruby says quiet and watches the rain fall. She feels tired.

"Is it strange?"

It take a moment for Ruby to realize Pearl had asked her a question. "W-wuh?"

"Is it strange?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you-" Pearl breaks off and looks slightly guiltily down at the Gem in her lap. "Do you ever feel like you'll never be good enough for her? Because you're just a Pearl? Just a Ruby?"

Ruby feels a twinge in a her left hand, where her Gem is located. Garnet's never thought of it. Sapphire doesn't need to think of it. But Ruby sometimes has, and does, because that's what she is, a Ruby.

"Yeah," she mumbles, looking down at her hands, her Gem embedded in the left, Sapphire cradled in the right. "There are things she knows... that I never knew because no one ever thought I was smart enough. She was in Blue Diamond's court, I was just among thousands of others like me.

"Rubies are made to follow orders, and fight. Sometimes I want more. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have Garnet."

"She is..." Pearl ventures.

"The best of us, yeah." Ruby glances over. "How about you?"

"It sometimes feel like a dream," Pearl murmurs. "There was shouting and screaming. I hid under the desk. Then Rose came in. She just swept open the doors and walked out. She'd actually poofed Pink Diamond. And then she saw me and asked me if I wanted to leave."

Pearls voice trembles, and she bites her lip.

"I wasn't even her Pearl. I don't know why she looked at me and cared." She hides her face in a knobby knees and Ruby has to strain to hear her next words.

"I don't deserve her."

"I don't think so," Ruby says angrily, unable to help herself. "What have you done to _not_  deserve her?"

Pearl looks up, stunned. "I-I--"

"What happened today wasn't your fault. And what happened today wasn't my fault either. We are at war, and this happens. Rose Quartz knew this when she started it. Sapphire and Garnet knew this when they joined the fight today."

Ruby cradles Sapphire to her chest. "When Blue Diamond ordered me shattered, I was going to accept it because I felt that I deserved it. But Sapphire thought otherwise. And look at all the other Crystal Gems! Jasper! Jade! They don't look down on us for who are. You - _we_ , we deserve this."

"I know," says Pearl quietly. "But it's hard to feel that way sometimes."

Ruby doesn't know what to say to that. Outside the rain has gotten stronger, casting a grey gloom over everything.

All of a sudden, Pearl scrambles out of the hollow and into the rain, and with the utmost care, sets the Rose Quartz in her hands down on the wet grass. A haze of light surrounds the gem which slowly takes form and solidifies until their leader stands reformed before them.

Rose Quartz has change little about her appearance, though her hair does seem to be curlier. Tears once again creep into the corners of Pearls eyes and she hugs herself as though that's the only thing keep her from falling apart.

Rose seems to notice that too, because she holds out her arms and says, "Pearl," and that's all it takes for the smaller Gem. She throws herself in Rose's arms and for a moment Ruby thinks they may fuse. But all they do is stay like that for a while, as Pearl's shoulders shake silently and Rose Quartz strokes a hand down her back.

Ruby watches, feeling rather envious when she feels a pulse run through her hand - the one clenched around Sapphire.

"Sapphire," she yells excitedly even as the Gem grows cold in her hand. Sapphire reforms with her hand in Ruby's, who immediately swings her around in a hug.

Fusion is bliss. Ruby notes the small smile and tiny wave Pearl gives her before she enveloped in the completeness that is being Garnet. She is the answer to everything, to every doubt, fear and worry Ruby has ever had.

Garnet turns to her companions, Rose who still has an arm slung about Pearl's shoulder.

"I like the purple," Pearl says and indeed, the pale pinks and purples that had previously splashed about her torso have come together in a rich shade of purple that stretches down to her knees. Below that, one leg is blue and one is dark red, the colors mirrored in her arms.

"You look very nice, Garnet," says Rose, and lets go of Pearl to pull Garnet into a hug too.

Garnet smiles, brushing imaginary dust of her shoulders. "I clearly have great taste." She smiles at Pearl.

The rain has softened into a patter and mist is slowly rising among the trees. Above the blues and the greys of Earth's evening sky, pinkish-orange rays of the sunset peek through. For now, this world is quiet and beautiful, and together, the Crystal Gems walk slowly back to the camp.  


**Author's Note:**

> “Even  
> After  
> All this time  
> The Sun never says to the Earth,  
> "You owe me."
> 
> Look  
> What happens  
> With a love like that,  
> It lights the whole sky.”
> 
> ― Hafiz


End file.
